To be totally honest, I was a little surprised when I first began playing Plants War. It felt awfully familiar to me, not that it's a bad set of mechanics to utilize. Of course it's got a decent number of differences when directly compared to Legendary Heroes, so there isn't really a problem. But while its single-player focused approach has a fair amount of positives (and negatives), it could stand to lighten up on the "freemium" content a tad. Okay, more than a tad.

The world of Plants War is in turmoil. Nature is under the constant threat of destruction from... nature? Yeah, it sounds weird to me, too. Regardless, people are gone and animals have been running wild. The plants don't take kindly to them tearing up their forests so they decide to fight back. That's where the player comes in. They'll have direct control over a special hero unit, and will need to use him and his special attacks in conjunction with constantly spawning friendly fodder in order to push back the mammalian aggressors. A number of different hero types with various skills can be unlocked, as well as a selection of different minor plan types, and it shouldn't take long for players to find a combination that they're comfortable with.

Aside from a somewhat rocky tutorial that explains some blatantly obvious things and skips over other more important stuff, Plants War is actually very accessible. Difficulty ramps up fairly steadily and earlier stages can be replayed as much as needed for practice and coins. Each hero has a handful of abilities that can be upgraded as they gain levels, so there isn't a ridiculous amount of stat management to worry about, either. And of course steam-rolling over the opposition is always fun.

The problem I have with Plants War is that most of the "cool stuff" feels nigh impossible to get without spending money. Most of the smaller plants can be unlocked via diligence, as can a couple of the hero types, but a lot of things require leaves (a.k.a special moneys). Leaves are incredibly tough to earn without paying. They seem to only be available through completing and claiming special achievements or through random luck after completing a stage for the first (and only the first) time. 140 leaves may not sound like much, but after several achievements and gift boxes I've yet to pass 20. Kind of a shame.

Thankfully Plants War's core experience is fun enough to warrant several play sessions. It takes a while for things to stop feeling quite so "samey" due to unlocks being so tough to acquire, but it's always satisfying to earn that new unit and take it out for a spin.

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